The Colour Of Midnight
Robyn Donald

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For my mother, Iris Leabourn Hutching, who, forced by circumstances to give up some of her dreams, made sure that each of her six children got the chance to follow theirs. She kept her sense of humor and compassion intact through it all, and is the best cook in New Zealand, which is only one of the reasons her children love her.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER ONE

‘THERE should,’ Minerva Robertson muttered as she peered through the rain, ‘be signs on that signpost, damn it. Wretched vandals.’

Her voice, oddly deep for such a slight person, was tinged by a British accent, the inevitable outcome of two years spent as the cook on a yacht owned by a British billionaire and crewed by British sailors. Now back in New Zealand, she was working hard to get rid of it.

Unless she could work out which road she should take, she was going to have to go back. Somewhere, not too far away, was a huge sheep and cattle station called Spanish Castle. The place might, she thought with an irritation that was tinged with foreboding, as well be in Spain.

For the last five days she had slowly meandered north from Auckland, telling herself she was on holiday. At a loose end when her father and stepmother had left for a business trip to North America, she’d decided to see a little of New Zealand’s long northern peninsula. Even as close as Kerikeri, twenty kilometres or so away, she had had no intention of visiting the place where her stepsister had spent the last year of her life.

Until she’d seen the signpost. Spanish Castle, it had said, and pointed inland.

Without really making a conscious decision Minerva had followed that imperative finger.

Not, she thought now, switching warm air up on to the windscreen in an effort to clean the thick film of condensation from it, one of my better ideas.

Both roads looked equally dismal; both seemed to dwindle into pot-holed tracks beneath the huge, primeval presence of the kauri forest. If she hadn’t seen that signpost at the bottom of the hill she’d be wondering whether she’d taken a wrong turning somewhere.

As it was, she had to say out loud, ‘You know you’re on the right road, idiot. Spanish Castle is somewhere up here, down one of these hopeless-looking roads. And the weather is pure coincidence—in New Zealand it always rains in the spring!’

Muttering, she opened an umbrella and dashed through the merciless rain, skidding to a halt in the tangle of long, exceedingly wet grass that surrounded the base of the signpost. A few mustard-coloured splinters lurking coyly in the mud put paid to her idea of fitting the smashed signs to the jagged stumps and working out which road led where.

Gloomily, she turned back towards the car.

And gasped.

Unheard above the persistent drumming of raindrops on the umbrella, a man had solidified from the mist and the murk. Clad in a riding coat, he was on the back of a large grey horse; a black and white sheepdog lay in front of him over the shoulders of the horse. All three, dog, man, horse, were regarding her with an aloof surprise that wasn’t mitigated in the least by the slow, almost involuntary wag of the dog’s tail.

Minerva essayed a tentative smile, trying to forget that she hadn’t seen a house for the last three miles, and that around them were several thousand hectares of bush, sombre and dank and almost pathless.

As though on cue the rain eased off, then miraculously stopped. All she could hear was the distant rush of some stream and the faint drip of diverted raindrops in the bush.

‘Don’t wave that umbrella around,’ the man said curtly, the lean hand holding the reins moving slightly as the horse danced sideways. Almost immediately the animal subsided into stillness again, although it eyed her with the same wary caution as the man and the dog.

Even with rain trickling down the austere angles of his face, the rider emanated a controlled power and strength that was very intimidating.

Minerva’s hand clenched on the handle of the umbrella. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said gruffly, hoping that her nervousness didn’t show in her tone. ‘Can you tell me which road leads to Spanish Castle?’

He surveyed her with unnervingly pale eyes that looked through her rather than at her, although she was prepared to bet that nothing escaped his notice. He reminded her, she thought foolishly, of some grim conquistador viewing yet another country to be plundered, without passion, without even a rage for riches, to be looted and sacked simply because it was there.

The horse moved restlessly, flicking its ears. A shiver tightened Minerva’s skin. The man and his mount were taking on an almost mythic quality, remote, clothed in darkly shimmering veils of fantasy and legend. Even the dog, unnaturally sapient, looked like a being from another world!

‘It’s a cattle station around here somewhere,’ she said politely, striving to regain her normal pragmatic outlook. ‘It belongs to a Mr Peveril. Nick Peveril.’

‘I know who it belongs to.’ The even, darkly textured voice was toneless. ‘Why do you want to go there?’

Minerva’s indigo eyes glittered as her chin came up. ‘Is that any business of yours?’

He inclined his head, his gaze never leaving her heart-shaped face. ‘I think so. I own Spanish Castle.’

She should have known. She’d seen photographs, but the groom who had smiled back from the prints had looked completely different from this man. Of course, they were wedding photos. Everyone always looked happy in wedding photos.

‘Mr Peveril,’ she said, looking, she hoped, confident and in control, ‘I’m Minerva Robertson.’

His brows drew together. ‘Are you?’ he said without the slightest flicker of interest. ‘Am I expecting you?’

Something shrivelled inside her. ‘I’m Stella’s sister,’ she told him crisply.

The hand on the reins jerked; as the horse moved uneasily the dog turned its head and looked a moment up into the lean, harsh-featured face.

‘I see,’ Nick Peveril said.

How could Stella have married this cold fish?

Minerva said brightly, ‘I’m home from abroad and I decided to come north for a holiday, because Ruth and Dad are away.’

Ruth had mentioned Nick Peveril in passing, but how close they were Minerva didn’t know. He certainly wasn’t giving any clues; that hard, expressionless face didn’t alter as he nodded. She ploughed on with a touch of defiance, ‘I didn’t really intend to come here, but I saw the sign at the bottom of the hill so—well, here I am.’

The sound of her babbling disconcerted her so much that she stopped and took a horrified breath. Damn it, she wasn’t going to lose her composure just because Stella’s husband looked at her as though she was something revolting and slimy he’d found under a stone.

‘I’m sorry I was less than welcoming,’ he said, still in that level tone that revealed nothing. A whip-flick of cynicism robbed his smile of humour. ‘I had no idea you were back.’

‘I’ve been home for three weeks.’

He nodded, his eyes not leaving her face. ‘Spanish Castle’s only a couple of miles down the road to the left. You’ll see the gateposts. Left again inside, and follow the drive to the homestead. When you get there, tell Mrs Borrows who you are. Are you staying?’

‘No,’ she said too quickly. ‘I’m going to spend the night in Mangonui at the backpackers’ hostel there.’

He didn’t look relieved. He didn’t, she thought with a waspishness that surprised her, look anything except austere and impervious and infinitely remote.

‘I hope it’s not too inconvenient,’ she said sweetly, essaying a smile.

It didn’t evoke any response. Minerva was suddenly conscious that she wore no make-up at all and that her long ash-brown hair was probably hanging in strings down her back, dulled by the rain into an undistinguished mouse colour.

‘Not in the least. I’ll be there as soon as I can.’ An imperceptible signal propelled the big horse across the road and through a gate she hadn’t noticed. The horse turned; with a skill indicative of long practice, and a brutal economy of movement unhindered by the heavy riding coat, Stella’s widower bent and pushed the gate closed. Straightening, he lifted a hand in what might have been a mocking salute, then urged the horse forward again.

The mist swallowed them up, horse, dog and man, as though they had never existed.

Minerva stared stupidly after them until her stiff hands and wet feet recalled her to herself. So that was Nick Peveril! She shivered. He was—elemental, a fit denizen for this gloomy, rain-soaked landscape. Yet Stella had written glowingly of his laughter, his kindness and his fascinating sophistication.

There was nothing amusing, kind or sophisticated about this man. He was made of much more primal stuff. In spite of that pale horse, he looked like the dark lord of Hades himself. However, there was no need to surrender to the chill that crawled down her spine. She was no virginal Persephone, to be snapped up as a pretty trophy to brighten his gloomy kingdom.

It was Stella he had swept away in a whirlwind courtship that had lasted a bare month. In spite of her ravishing beauty and her affairs Stella had been oddly inexperienced and Nick Peveril was the first man she had ever loved.

Yet he had killed her as surely as if it had been one of those lean strong hands that had measured out the infamous combination of sedatives and tranquillisers and painkillers that had put an end to her twenty-six years of life.

Minerva wriggled back into the car, held the umbrella out of the door and shook it vigorously before thrusting it on to a plastic bag in the back. Turning around, she slammed the door shut and gripped the wheel, gazing ahead with eyes that stung.

Only then did she admit that the real reason she had taken the road to Spanish Castle was that she wanted to know what had gone wrong with her sister’s idyll.

Although almost a year had passed since Stella’s death, Minerva had come back to a house that still mourned. Oh, Ruth, Stella’s mother, smiled a lot, but her strenuously bright manner didn’t hide the fact that she was too thin, her carefully coiffed hair grey, her pretty face haggard. Minerva had been shocked and alarmed.

That night she had sat talking with her father long after Ruth had gone to bed, finally saying bluntly, ‘She hasn’t got over it, has she?’

‘No.’ Her father set down his glass of whisky; it was almost water, as it had been ever since Minerva was old enough to remember. A prosperous businessman, Brian Robertson was abstemious by nature. He’d used to tease Ruth by telling her he’d married her to provide a bit of drama to his boringly normal life. It didn’t look as though he had teased his wife for a long time.

Now he said heavily, ‘I don’t think she’ll ever get over it. She still cries every night.’ His mouth tightened. ‘She waits until she thinks I’m asleep and then she weeps into her pillow. It rips me to pieces. She feels so guilty, as though she failed Stella, and I can’t get her to understand that Stella was a grown woman, old enough to be responsible for her actions. Ruth thinks she should have seen what was happening.’

Minerva rubbed at the frown between her brows. ‘Poor Ruth.’

‘I’m worried,’ Brian said unnecessarily. ‘She’s slipping away from me. If only she knew why Stella killed herself!’

‘Nothing’s turned up? No other letter?’ She knew the answer, but she asked just the same.

‘No.’ Brian sipped his drink, his pleasant, good-looking face set in lines it hadn’t had a year before. ‘Just the note she left for Nick, and that told us nothing.’

Both were silent. ‘I’m so sorry’, Stella had scrawled with an unusual economy of words. ‘Please try to forgive me’.

‘What about Nick? He must have some inkling of what went wrong.’

‘He’s just as much in the dark as we are. It shattered him.’

‘He must know something.’

But her father shook his head. ‘He says he doesn’t, and I believe him.’

Her father was an acute judge of men, but now, as Minerva switched on the engine, she wondered. The man who had appeared out of the mist didn’t look as though he would balk at lying if it suited him. Had he lied about his wife’s state of mind?

Setting a jaw that gave definition and character to her rather indeterminate features, Minerva put the car in gear and drove carefully through the thinning mist.

Just inside the gates she stopped, looking to the right at the great pile of rock which a hundred years ago had given the first Nicholas Peveril the name for his land. The eroded neck of an ancient volcano, it reared high above the surrounding countryside. Cloud drifted low across the sheer rock faces, moving on invisible winds, parting to reveal trees clinging to clefts and fissures in the cliffs. Dramatic and awe-inspiring, it did look like the massive ruins of some gaunt castle of the giants.

A shiver of apprehension pulled the tiny hairs of Minerva’s skin upright.

‘Stop being so jittery and stupid,’ she told herself as she put the car in motion again. ‘You’ve seen Igor, and he wasn’t so bad. No obvious fangs, and a horse and a dog instead of bats!’

Nick Peveril was clearly a good farmer. The fences were in excellent repair, as were the various buildings, and the grass in the paddocks lay thick and lush in its spring growth.

He was also a good employer. The farm workers’ cottages were big, well-cared-for, and set in substantial gardens.

But the homestead was breathtaking, a huge double-storeyed building that must have been built by that first Nicholas, for it was a Victorian structure of weatherboards, with more than a hint of the severe, satisfying proportions of the Georgian style it had supplanted.

Shading the front veranda was a wistaria vine that was probably as old as the house. Its thick stems were hazed by bronzed, gleaming new growth, punctuated by fat buds silver in the rain.

A wide flight of wooden steps led up to the veranda. On either side of a glass-panelled front door French windows with panes of glass above stretched in ordered pairs down the side of the house. This was one nineteenth-century villa that wouldn’t be dark inside.

And the garden was like something out of a fairy-tale, a bower of skilfully contrasted form and colour, each glowing flower, each leaf, sprinkled by crystals of rain.

Minerva switched off the engine and got out. From somewhere around the back of the house a dog barked, warning the inhabitants that a stranger was near. Heavy, unsettling scent from the roses mingled with the rich perfume of a white rhododendron beside the steps. More roses, miniatures planted in clay pots, ascended on either side of the steps; as she moved between them perfume billowed into the moist air, adding to the mingled scents that drifted from the plants in the wide bed beneath the veranda.

Minerva’s nerves tingled. Holding herself very erect, smiling sardonically because it was ridiculous to imagine that the place was welcoming her, she walked to the door.

Before she had time to ring the bell or use the knocker the door opened. A middle-aged woman with a harassed expression looked enquiringly at her.

‘I’m Minerva Robertson,’ Minerva said, smiling. ‘Mrs Peveril’s sister.’

‘Mrs Pev— Oh!’ For a shocking moment the woman looked appalled.

‘I met Mr Peveril along the road,’ Minerva said smoothly, struggling to hide a fierce, corroding anger. ‘I’ve just called in. I’m on my way north.’

‘Oh. Yes, of course. Do come in.’ Collecting herself with an obvious effort, Mrs Borrows held the door open.

Minerva, who had some experience of old wooden houses, braced herself as she walked into a wide hall decorated in paper the rich gold of Jersey cream. But instead of the damp rawness she expected, the place was warm and dry.

The temperature was a definite bonus. It wasn’t a centrally heated stuffiness, more a gentle, all-pervading warmth that banished the bone-chilling dankness Minerva had experienced in other old houses.

Over the years she’d worked in the kitchens of several very expensively decorated houses. Some she had liked, some she had found soulless. The homestead at Spanish Castle had been decorated by someone with great skill and a definite empathy for Victorian architecture. Minerva’s gaze skimmed a splendid console table on a mellow Persian runner. Reflected in the gilt-framed Regency mirror above was a bunch of apricot and yellow and white old-fashioned roses in a silver vase, their sweetness almost unbearably evocative.

Beyond the table an elegant staircase ascended to the first floor. Gilt-framed pictures, mostly of an age in keeping with the house, were displayed carefully, and there were flowers everywhere.

‘This is beautiful,’ she said softly, looking around her with pleasure. ‘How old is it?’

‘A hundred and twenty years.

‘It doesn’t show its age.’

‘Spanish Castle has always been well-cared-for,’ the housekeeper said as though she’d been accused of neglecting her duty. ‘Would you like to come in here?’

She led Minerva into a small formal parlour decorated in the same sunny shades, although here the colours were less intense as befitted a room where people spent time rather than passed through.

‘Would you like a cup of tea while you’re waiting for Mr Peveril?’ Mrs Borrows asked punctiliously.

Minerva was already regretting her impulsive decision to drive up that long road from Kerikeri. The house might be welcoming but its inhabitants certainly weren’t. Still, she was here now; she’d have a cup of tea, exchange a few words with Nick Peveril, and then leave.

‘Yes, thank you.’ Her throaty voice was just as impersonally polite as the older woman’s.

She didn’t look around until the older woman had left. The little room could have been too stiff with its delicately formal seats and desk, but the pieces of furniture had the air of having lived so long together that they had settled into an amiable, comfortable companionship.

Outside the French windows an emerald lawn swept to a wide band of sheltering trees thickly planted at the base with rhododendrons and daphne, pieris and more roses. Minerva’s eyes lingered on one particularly glorious golden one until it was blotted out by a thick curtain of rain, heavy and implacable.

She turned away.

Almost immediately the housekeeper returned with a tray; she had barely set it down when her employer walked in, instantly dominating the small, decorous room.

It was the unexpectedness of his arrival that took Minerva’s breath away, nothing else. She hadn’t expected him so soon; he must have taken a short-cut. When her heart had slowed down a bit she realised that he probably wasn’t much taller than her father, only a couple of inches over six feet. But that air of cool authority, allied to the cool, inimical survey of his strange colourless eyes, made her feel small and defenceless.

‘Hello,’ she said, producing a polite smile.

‘So you found your way here.’ He was amazingly handsome, in a remote, arrogantly patrician manner. ‘Welcome to Spanish Castle. Helen, could I have a cup, too?’

‘I’ve put one there for you,’ the housekeeper said.

He looked at her. ‘Any call yet?’

‘No.’ The housekeeper looked excited and worried at the same time.

‘Let me know when it comes through,’ he said.

Smiling, she replied, ‘Yes, of course.’

No formality there, Minerva thought as the older woman left the room.

‘Would you like to pour? Mrs Borrows’s daughter is in labour in Christchurch,’ Nick Peveril explained. ‘It’s the first grandchild, so she’s very excited. How did you enjoy sailing the world on your billionaire’s yacht?’

‘He wasn’t my billionaire,’ Minerva said lightly, smiling with more than a little irony at the memory of the portly, harried man who’d spent no more than three weeks playing in his expensive state-of-the-art toy during the two years she had sailed on it. ‘I was merely the cook. I enjoyed it very much. Do you take milk?’

‘Thank you. No sugar.’

As he took the cup and saucer from her she noted his beautiful hands, strong with long, callused fingers, tanned like his face almost to copper. The sight of those hands dealing efficiently with the elegant china cup made something contract suddenly in Minerva’s stomach.

‘It seems an unusual career for a woman with all your advantages.’

At least he accepted that it was a career! Minerva gave the usual smile and the usual answer. ‘It’s my one talent, and I enjoy doing it.’

‘You don’t stay in any job for very long. Stella said that the longest you lasted was usually a year.’

‘I’m not into the old-retainer bit, so I sign short contracts,’ she said steadily, resenting his comment even though there hadn’t been a hint of censure in the deep voice. ‘That way I get to see the world and experience it a bit more intimately than a tourist does.’

‘You must really have enjoyed it to spend two years on the yacht.’

She had just joined the crew when Stella wrote to tell her she was getting married. Because of a glitch in the postal arrangements the letter hadn’t caught up with her until a month after the wedding. It hadn’t seemed worthwhile to come back then.

And she had been in the middle of the Atlantic, bucketing through a hurricane, when Stella suffered her lonely death. As soon as they reached land she had flown back, arriving too late for the funeral, but able to mourn with Ruth and her father and her half-brother Kane for a couple of weeks before flying back.

Minerva nodded. ‘The billionaire insisted on two-year contracts, and I wanted the job enough to make an exception for him.’

‘The great New Zealand overseas experience.’ He had a beautiful voice, rich and many-layered, but it had remarkably little expression: as little as his face, or the silver-grey eyes. They should have been translucent, but the polished metallic sheen successfully hid any emotion.

This withdrawn, reserved man had retired behind the formidable barricades of his self-sufficiency. Unease slithered the length of her spine, gathered in an unpleasant pool at the pit of her stomach.

‘I suppose it has to do with living on three small islands at the bottom of the map,’ she returned conversationally. ‘To get anywhere at all you have to fly for hours, so why not go the whole hog and see the rest of the world while you’re about it?’

His smile was cynical. ‘And broaden your insular mind.’

She lifted thin eyebrows. ‘Some people merely hone their prejudices.’

‘That’s astute of you.’

‘I suppose you’ve done a fair amount of travelling,’ she said, unable to decide whether he was being sarcastic or not.

‘Yes. But my most vivid memories are of the first time I was on my own. I came overland from India and hitch-hiked around Europe, spent six months in England, then went on one of those truck tours through Africa to Cape Town, before coming back across Canada and America.’

In any other man she would have thought she heard wistfulness in his tone, but it was impossible to think of this man as being wistful. He exuded a self-confidence so imposing and uncompromising that she was more than a little threatened by it.

‘Sounds fun,’ she said neutrally. He had changed from his farm clothes into a pair of well-tailored trousers and a fine cotton shirt. Few men in New Zealand had their shirts made for them, but Minerva was positive that this one had been cut especially to fit his broad shoulders and muscular arms.

It was difficult to imagine the man who lived in this house and wore those clothes backpacking around the world. She flicked a swift glance at his face. The angular features and straight mouth spoke of strength and uncompromising purpose. No matter how hard she tried she couldn’t envisage him as a carefree youth.

Her gaze dropped to her teacup as she was undermined by a sense of dislocation, a shifting of the foundations. Nick Peveril, with his impassive face and deliberate, guarded composure, bore no resemblance at all to the man of whom Stella had written so ecstatically.

When he spoke again Minerva’s cup rattled in its saucer. Watch what you’re doing, she scolded herself, setting it down on the table by her chair.

‘How long are you home for?’ he asked.

‘A month.’ A substantial bonus meant she could afford a lazy summer, but her plans for the future were going to need money, so it would join the rest of her savings.

‘And then what? Stella seemed to think that you intended to settle permanently here sooner or later.’

She shrugged. ‘One of these days I’m going to come back and open my own restaurant, but for the moment I like my life. I’ve been offered a job in the British Virgin Islands with an expatriate family.’

When he smiled one corner of his mouth lifted higher than the other. ‘You’ll be able to work on your tan,’ he said lightly. Something flickered in the frosty brilliance of his eyes.

It made her distinctly uneasy. In a voice that could have starched a dozen tablecloths, she said, ‘The hole in the ozone layer has put an end to roasting in the sun, but I’m looking forward to it. I believe it’s extraordinarily beautiful there.’ Before she had time to wonder whether it was sensible, she added, ‘Stella and I used to promise each other that one day we’d go to the Caribbean and drink rum and play in a steel band.’

‘She wouldn’t have liked it, unless you stayed in a luxury hotel. For some strange reason I expected you to look like her,’ he said, pale eyes opaque. ‘Stupid, I know. You don’t share even a parent in common, do you?’

‘No, we’re a blended family. Stella and I were no relation at all, really, which is why she was beautiful and I’m not.’

The minute she said it she knew it was a mistake. It sounded like a cheap appeal for compliments. She opened her mouth to qualify the statement, then closed it firmly.

‘Yes, she was,’ he said. ‘But you’re very attractive too, as I’m sure you know.’

He wasn’t so crass as to look her over, but an undertone in the enigmatic voice made her aware that he had noticed the long, coltish legs in her jeans, the gentle curves of her breasts, and the indentation of her narrow waist.

A kind of outrage, mingled with a suspicious warmth, sent colour scudding through her white skin. Not for the first time she wished she had Stella’s even tan. For her stepsister a blush had merely been a slight deepening of the apricot skin over her cheekbones; for Minerva it was an embarrassing betrayal.

She strove for objectivity. Men did notice women—it was a simple fact of life. They enjoyed with their eyes. Women did, too.

After all, she had observed that because his mouth was intriguingly lop-sided each rare smile hinted of wryness. She’d registered the thick black lashes and dark brows surrounding those amazingly limpid, guarded eyes, and now that his hair was drying she’d realised it was the colour of manuka honey, a warm, rich amber with golden highlights set there by the northern sun.

She was unreservedly grateful when Mrs Borrows came too quickly in through the door, her face unnaturally disciplined. ‘Nick—oh, Nick! Murray’s just rung,’ she said without preamble, her voice breaking on the last word. ‘Things are not going right. He—he thinks I should come down. As s-soon as I can.’

With the smooth speed Minerva had noticed before Nick got to his feet and went across to the housekeeper, sliding an unselfconscious arm around her shoulders, holding her while she fought for control.

‘Pack your bag,’ he ordered, ‘and I’ll get you to the airport in time to catch the afternoon plane to Auckland. I’ll organise a flight through to Christchurch.’

‘I can’t go,’ she said in muffled tones into his chest.

‘Why not?’

‘The dinner party you’re giving on Saturday night for those Brazilians. This isn’t Auckland, Nick, you can’t just get in caterers, and there’s no one here who could help you out with the cooking. Jillian’s not—’

‘Well, that’s where you’re wrong. Providentially, Minerva is a professional cook,’ he said calmly, silver eyes lancing across to where Minerva sat, frozen with dismay as she realised the implications. ‘She’ll be more than happy to stay and see to it that our South American guests are fed. Won’t you, Minerva?’ It was no question. The icy transparency of his gaze had hardened into a silent command.

Minerva’s brain closed down. She didn’t want to stay here! But of course she nodded. And when she saw Mrs Borrows lift her head to look at her with dawning hope she knew she couldn’t have refused.

‘Yes, I can do it,’ she said.

‘Are you sure?’ The housekeeper was obviously trying hard to be convinced.

Minerva nodded. ‘Tell me what you’ve organised and I guarantee I’ll have it on the table at the right time and cooked properly,’ she promised, her tone revealing such complete confidence that Mrs Borrows relaxed.

Yet she still hesitated. ‘It doesn’t seem right,’ she said, looking from Minerva’s face to Nick’s.

He said calmly, ‘Helen, Minerva is family.’

Minerva smiled. ‘That’s what families are for,’ she supplied. ‘Coming to the rescue. Don’t worry about it, I’ll be glad to help out.’

This was the right note to take. Her voice quivering, the housekeeper said, ‘Oh, thank you. I’ll get a bag packed,’ and hurried from the room.

Half an hour later they were seated in a large green Range Rover, travelling at a fair pace down the road Minerva had inched up so short a time before. Mrs Borrows was giving Minerva instructions, instructions Minerva didn’t need. However, she sat through them, asking questions when it seemed the older woman had run out. For the next two and a half hours until the housekeeper got to Christchurch she’d have nothing to do but worry; Minerva’s questions at least kept her mind occupied now.

Although the rain had eased again, the road was still slippery enough for the Range Rover to skid. That it didn’t was due to the skill of the man driving. Minerva, inclined to be a nervous passenger with a driver she didn’t know, soon gave up keeping her eye on the road ahead. Nick Peveril knew what he was doing.

They were ten minutes late, but the plane waited. Probably even large jumbo jets would wait for this man.

After a hasty goodbye Mrs Borrows ran across to the little aircraft and the door was swung shut behind her.

‘Hello, Nick,’ a laughing feminine voice said from behind. ‘The baby arrived, has it?’

He turned. ‘On its way,’ he said, that powerfully attractive smile crinkling the corners of his eyes.

The woman was one Genevieve Chatswood, thirtyish, smart in jeans and a Liberty print shirt with a navy woollen jersey over it, her slim feet in boots. As Nick made the introductions she eyed Minerva with cool but unmistakable interest.

‘Oh. Stella’s sister? You don’t look much alike.’

‘We were stepsisters,’ Minerva explained, trying to hide the note of resignation in her voice. ‘Her mother married my father.’

After a dismissive look Genevieve transferred her attention to the man beside her. Frowning, she asked, ‘Nick, if Mrs Borrows has had to go, what are you doing for Saturday night?’

‘Ah, that’s where the light hand of serendipity comes in,’ he said blandly. ‘Minerva will deal with it all. She’s a professional chef.’

‘How—fortunate,’ Genevieve said, her voice cooling rapidly. ‘Do you plan to stay long, Minerva?’

‘No.’ Minerva left it at that. She wasn’t going to answer questions from someone who had no right to ask them.

Nick said evenly, ‘Minerva is on holiday in the north. I hope to persuade her to stay on for a few days after the dinner.’ His enigmatic gaze rested a moment on Minerva’s shuttered face.

Genevieve’s green eyes narrowed a second, then opened wide. She flashed a smile at Nick. ‘Well, if you need any help, let me know, won’t you? I’d be quite happy to act as hostess for you again.’ The dazzling smile dimmed noticeably when it was transferred to Minerva. ‘I’d better go. I’ve just put ten boxes of orchids on the plane for Auckland; I’ve got to pick another fifty boxes to catch the flight to Japan tomorrow. See you Saturday!’

She strode away, confident, sure of her attraction and her competence. Minerva watched her departure thoughtfully. Genevieve Chatswood had lost no time in staking her claim. If that was the sort of woman Kerikeri bred, it was no wonder Stella had found it difficult to make friends.

Since knowing Stella she had learned to feel sorry for beautiful people. They never knew whether they were admired for their looks or for themselves.

Not that the man who walked with an easy, effortless gait around the front of the Range Rover seemed to suffer any such problems. Resenting quite irrationally that air of complete and invincible confidence, Minerva hid a cynical little smile as she fastened her seatbelt. Nick Peveril looked like a Regency buck, with all the type’s fabled pride and hauteur and air of self-contained assurance, as well as the elegance and savoir faire.

Perhaps he was too—too intense, too shut in on himself to have stepped from the pages of a Georgette Heyer novel. He was certainly a complex man, not a hearty, extroverted son of the soil.

However, he chose his accoutrements to fit his place in society. The Range Rover was exactly the right vehicle for the seriously rich pastoral aristocrat, and Spanish Castle the right setting. It was a pity the horse wasn’t black; it should rear all over the place, and be called Satan, or Demon, or Devil, and only ever be rideable by the lord of the house, but in spite of that it had looked the part perfectly.

Of course, the dog should be an aristocrat—a wolfhound, or some kind of hunting, shooting and fishing dog, instead of a black and white sheepdog. But it had added the right touch. You couldn’t have everything.

And in spite of his glacial demeanour, Nick made her more aware of her femininity than any other man since Paul Penn had seduced her when she was nineteen.

Which had to signal danger. Minerva looked straight ahead as he got in and switched on the engine.

Five silent minutes later he remarked casually, ‘You won’t have to do any of the housework. Helen has help three days a week from the wife of one of the stockmen. Just concentrate on the cooking.’

‘Oh, I’ll probably be able to manage a few light duties,’ she said, hiding the amusement in her tone with mildness.

He smiled. It was like the sun breaking through storm clouds. Lop-sided, slightly twisted it might be, but the fundamental detachment that seemed to be an integral part of his personality was temporarily in retreat when he smiled.

Her stomach clenched. When the armour he imposed over his emotions was breached he was gorgeous.

No wonder Stella had tumbled headlong into love with him. The thought sent a faint feeling of nausea through Minerva, as though by responding to that inscrutable, remote charm she had been disloyal to her stepsister.

Resting her head on the back of the seat, Minerva stared with unseeing, half-closed eyes at the rain-swept countryside, brooding yet again over Stella’s actions, wondering sickly what had driven her to take her own life.

There had been no reason for her to be depressed. She had had everything to live for; a husband she adored, a future that was shiny and sweet with the promise of happiness. She had been popular and loved, with an infectious, sparkling gaiety that attracted as much attention as her sultry, exotic beauty.

It was impossible to imagine Stella saving pills, stealing them from her mother and the housekeeper, hoarding them away in some horrible kind of squirrel’s cache until she had garnered enough to snuff out her life. She’d waited until Nick had gone away for three days, then swallowed them deliberately, carefully, until they were all gone. It was appalling, hideous, yet she had done it, and left them all bewildered.

The housekeeper had found her the next morning. That must have been Helen Borrows. No wonder she had looked so horrified when Minerva told her she was Mrs Peveril’s sister.

‘Suicide while the balance of her mind was disturbed’ had been the verdict at the inquest. Like Ruth, Minerva found this impossible to credit.

Stella had been so bright, so buoyantly high-spirited, so carefree as she flitted through her life. Oh, there had been moods. Stella’s glums, the family had called them, and joined in an unspoken conspiracy to jolly her out of them. But they had never been particularly intense.

At the inquest Mrs Borrows had said that she hadn’t noticed any signs of depression in the new Mrs Peveril, except that she seemed to be homesick and unable to settle in Northland. She had assumed it was because she didn’t like living in the country. Some people didn’t.

True enough. Yet Stella had seemed so in love with Nick that she would have lived anywhere just to be with him.

Admittedly, Stella hadn’t exactly had much staying power when it came to men. Had that swift, fierce, passion burned out so quickly?

No, her adoring, almost awed love for Nick had resounded through her letters. Yet something had gone wrong. The last communication Minerva had received had been written three months before her stepsister killed herself. By then her letters had become oddly remote, a mere record of events, as though Stella had been trying to hide her real feelings behind the words.

Minerva bit her lip. Meeting Nick, seeing Spanish Castle with her own eyes, had only added to the mystery.

CHAPTER TWO

IN SILENCE they finished the drive back to the homestead. Nick parked the Range Rover in a garage which formed one side of a courtyard at the rear of the house. More flowers and a bed of herbs filled the corners of the courtyard. Like the rest of Spanish Castle it was picture-perfect.

‘There’s room for your car next door,’ he said, and took her through into a double garage, one side of which was taken up by a large Mercedes-Benz saloon.

He opened the roller doors and watched while she drove Ruth’s small car-about-town into the space next to the aristocrat. Once out, she unlocked the boot.

Looking what he was, a man so sure of his position in the world that he had no need to prove himself, a man accustomed to command, he extended an imperative hand. Well, he was stronger than she. With a mental shrug, Minerva passed him the pack that had accompanied her around the globe; in his leanly elegant hands it seemed a battered, cheap thing.

‘This used to be a jumble of rooms,’ he said, leading her through a door into an airy passageway that looked on to the courtyard. ‘It’s now garages and offices and mud-room. This doorway leads into the house proper.’

Up three steps, another wide hall stretched in front of them. He opened a door halfway down. ‘Here’s the kitchen,’ he said.

It was superb. Checking it out with an authoritative eye, Minerva saw that it had been newly renovated and set up for entertaining. Not just the occasional dinner party, either. The French range had enough capacity to feed a hundred, and there was a big old wood range too, crackling softly to itself and giving off a very pleasant heat. Clearly she’d found the source of the unexpected warmth throughout the house.

‘Do you think you can manage the stoves?’ Nick asked.

‘No problem,’ Minerva said reassuringly, trying to project a brisk, businesslike manner.

Of course her hair chose that moment to slip from its knot at the back of her head and slither down her back. Nick’s gaze followed its downward passage until it reached her waist. Beneath the thick fringe of his lashes his eyes gleamed suddenly, something in that hooded scrutiny setting Minerva’s cheeks aflame.

Turning away, she caught the fine, flyaway mass in two hands and ruthlessly anchored it in a knot at the back of her head, forcing the combs into the slippery, silky strands.

So much for her effort to be composed and matter-of-fact!

‘I’ve cooked on everything from a campfire to a hotel range,’ she told him firmly, trying to regain ground.

‘Of course.’ The cool eyes scanned her flushed, averted face. His uneven smile held more than a hint of mockery. ‘You don’t look like my idea of a chef.’

‘Because I haven’t got a white hat on? I only wear one in hotel kitchens.’ Retreating behind a mask of expertise, she asked crisply, ‘What foods do you dislike?’

‘None. I’ll eat anything you put in front of me provided it isn’t too sweet.’ He glanced at the thin watch on his strong wrist. ‘We’ll talk about my tastes later, after I’ve shown you the rest of the house and your room.’

A large tabby cat strolled casually in through the door, looked around with the air of one at home, then headed straight for him.

‘This is Penelope,’ he said, bending down to scratch her in exactly the right place behind her ears. ‘Her official job is to keep any mice down.’

Minerva liked cats. This one, with its ineffable air of sleek self-respect, gave the huge kitchen a friendly, comfortable air. Purring, Penelope displayed herself sinuously about Nick’s ankles, then, when he stood up, leapt gracefully on to a stool and looked expectantly at Minerva.

She laughed softly. ‘Wait until dinner,’ she said. ‘And if I ever see you on the bench—watch it.’

The cat gave her a disgusted stare, yawned ostentatiously and settled down to wash its ears.

‘Don’t you like cats?’ Nick asked.

‘Love them, but with a cat it’s always wise to establish right at the beginning who’s boss. Penelope and I will get on very well, don’t worry.’ She stroked the blunt head, asking, ‘What’s your dog’s name? The one you were carrying on your horse?’

‘Rusty.’

Minerva’s brows shot up. ‘That’s funny. I’d have bet money on him being black and white, without a speck of brown.’

‘And you’d have won. I didn’t name him,’ he said, that half-smile softening his features.

‘Who did?’

‘The man who bred him. I’ve always assumed he was colourblind.’

‘Does he come inside?’ she asked. ‘Rusty, I mean.’

His eyebrows lifted. ‘No, he’s a farm dog.’

So farm dogs were not pets. You learn something new every day, she told herself.

‘I used to have a Labrador who did come inside,’ he said, ‘but Stella didn’t like dogs, so when he died I didn’t get another.’

There was a chilling lack of emotion in his tone, in his face, when he said his dead wife’s name. It was as though she meant nothing to him. Or perhaps, Minerva thought slowly, as though he still couldn’t bear to think of it, as though the only way he could cope was to tamp the emotions down.

‘And what is the horse’s name?’ she asked quickly.

His brows lifted but he said readily enough, ‘Silver Demon.’

Something in her expression must have given her away, because an answering amusement glimmered in his eyes. ‘I didn’t name him, either. Pretentious, isn’t it?’

‘It suits him,’ she said solemnly, smoothing the soft fur behind Penelope’s ears to hide the flutter that smile set up somewhere in the region of her heart.

He shook his head. ‘It doesn’t. Although he’s a stallion he’s as placid as a gelding, which is why he’s here. We don’t breed horses at Spanish Castle, so there’s no place for a temperamental stallion, or mare, for that matter; this is a working station.’ He paused, then added without expression, ‘He doesn’t come inside, either.’

When Minerva laughed he watched her with an arrested expression, almost as though a laughing woman was a novelty. The amusement died in her throat. Abruptly, Nick turned towards the door. Answering the unspoken summons, she left Penelope in charge and followed him from the kitchen.

‘I’ll take you round the ground floor first,’ he said, ‘so you know your way about, then I’ll show you your room.’

The homestead was magnificent, furniture and fabric and the house itself combining to make a harmonious whole. The last room they went into was a splendid dining-room where an eighteenth-century mahogany table was set off perfectly by buttercup-coloured walls and a huge painting that should have been incongruous, a modern South American acrylic of the jungle. Yet the lush, almost naïve picture set off the big room and its elegant, traditional furniture with style and wit.

Gazing around, Minerva asked, ‘Who decorated the house? It’s brilliant.’

‘My mother.’

Was his mother still alive? Yes, Stella had written of a tall, charming woman who had married again. ‘She has great talent.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Although most of the furniture was in the house, she re-organised the place to within an inch of its life as well as choosing the colours and the materials. In her day it wasn’t done for a young woman to have a career, but she’d have been a success as a decorator. She lives in Singapore now with her second husband, and is having the time of her life redoing his house and garden.’

The stairs led to a passage lit by an arched window above the staircase and a large double-hung window at the other end of the house. More pictures were displayed along the walls, some by artists Minerva thought she recognised, some unknown, but all chosen with discernment and the passion of the true connoisseur.

‘Did your mother collect the pictures?’ she asked, looking at one particularly impressive oil of a woman on the beach.

‘Some. My grandparents and great-grandparents bought some, and I’ve added to them.’

‘They have...’ Struggling for a way to express her feelings, she could only say lamely, ‘They seem to go to together, to make up a whole.’

‘Perhaps because we’ve only ever bought what we really like,’ he said.

Her room, just around the corner from the stairs, was surprisingly large, with a four-poster bed against one wall and a small door opposite. Going over to the bed, Nick turned down the spread.

‘It’s not made up,’ he said. ‘I’ll help you do it now.’

‘I’ll do it,’ she said swiftly. It was ridiculous, but she didn’t want him making the bed with her. ‘Where’s the linen cupboard?’

He nodded towards a massive French armoire on one wall. ‘In there. Are you sure? I do know how to make a bed.’

Minerva’s smile was hurried. ‘I’m sure you can, but honestly, it’s no trouble.’

‘All right. The bathroom is through the door beside it,’ he said. ‘Let me know if there’s anything else you want.’

Minerva looked away. The ripple of taut muscle as he swung her pack on to a chair set uneasy excitement singing through her. ‘I will,’ she said. ‘What time do you have dinner?’

‘Seven-thirty. I think Helen has left a sort of menu.’

‘Yes.’

He said without emotion, ‘Thank you for stepping into the breach. Helen was frantic to get to her daughter, but she wouldn’t have left me in the lurch.’

‘That’s loyalty,’ Minerva said slowly. Was the housekeeper devoted enough to answer a lawyer who asked questions about the relationship between husband and wife with, if not lies, at least a bending of the truth that favoured her employer?

After all, it would be pragmatic of her to be generous in her interpretation of the situation, even a little biased. Not only did Nick own Spanish Castle, he had interests in other businesses, mostly concerned with the agricultural and pastoral sector, including one extremely successful one he’d set up himself. Irritated by the lack of decent software for agricultural use, he had designed his own, marketed it, and now headed a firm which was expanding its exports by a quantum leap each year.

So he was clever, a creative thinker and an astute businessman as well as part of New Zealand’s landed gentry. The Peveril name was one to reckon with in the north. Nick was a local grandee, a power in the country. And he was kind; his concern for Mrs Borrows hadn’t been assumed.

Perhaps no one was all that interested in why his wife had died, especially as he hadn’t been there when Stella swallowed her deadly mixture of pills.

Nick’s broad shoulders moved a fraction. ‘She adored my mother,’ he said calmly, as though this explained everything. ‘Now, about payment. Family or not,’ his voice turned sardonic, ‘I certainly don’t expect you to give up your holiday without making it worthwhile for you.’

Minerva lifted ironic eyes. ‘The family bit cuts both ways,’ she said lightly, hiding even from herself her instinctive rejection of the idea of taking money from him. ‘You don’t pay family for coming to the rescue. It isn’t done.’

The cold fire of his gaze held hers for a pulse-thudding moment. He meant to ride roughshod over her; she could see his intention as clearly as though he had spoken the words.

Then something changed his mind and his expression altered into the chilly impersonality she was beginning to dislike. With a narrow, sharp-edged smile, he said, ‘Very well.’

Oddly enough, she resented his easy capitulation. She had, she realised, looked forward to crossing swords with him. Something told her that he would be a good enemy, hard but just, and that there would be an intense exhilaration in battling him. Minerva rather enjoyed a fair fight; in that she was completely different from Stella, who had hated quarrels and been unable to cope with them.

It seemed suddenly disloyal to bandy words and fence for position with the man who had been instrumental in some way for her sister’s death. Her lips tightened. She said too loudly, ‘Well, that’s settled then. I’d better unpack.’

When he had left the room she stood for a moment, her eyes fixed on the door, before breathing out with a sudden, explosive sound. Then she walked across to the wide bed and sat down on it, her eyes troubled.

He was too much, too tall, too good-looking, with eyes that saw too much and a mouth that promised too much, and a voice that sent too many shivers down her spine. Yet that uncompromising dominance wasn’t entirely physical; even curbed by will-power, the dark force of his personality blazed forth with an indelible impact. No wonder Stella had been overwhelmed.

More than anything, Minerva wanted to understand her stepsister’s state of mind in those last months before her death. Oh, she hadn’t come up here deliberately to spy and poke and probe, but that had to be part of the reason she had turned off Highway 10 and headed up the hill. For a year Stella’s death had nagged at her, demanding that she do something about it, that she make someone suffer for it.

She needed to find out what had driven her stepsister to take that final, irrevocable step into the darkness. If they knew, Ruth and her father could pick up the threads of their lives and find some measure of serenity and acceptance.

Initially she had blamed Nick, but now it seemed fairly clear that like Ruth, like them all, he was living in one of the darker corners of hell.

Minerva sighed, looking around with a troubled frown.

Perhaps Stella should be allowed to rest in peace, that lovely phrase which promised so much.

Biting her lip, Minerva stared down at the faded hues of the Persian carpet, watching the wonderful coppery red and brilliant blue blur through her tears into a jumble of undefined hues.

What had been Stella’s thoughts during the last night she had spent here?

No one, she thought sadly, would ever know. Stella had made sure of that by not asking for help, by giving no reason. Sometimes Minerva wondered whether she would have made a difference; whether, if she’d been home, Stella would have confided in her.

Although Minerva was a year younger, she had been the stronger, treading through the minefields of adolescence with a light foot and comparative ease, whereas Stella had made hard weather of it.

When Stella got drunk it had been Minerva who had smuggled her into the house and dealt with the aftermath, just as she had coped the time Stella had tried marijuana. Later, realising that Stella had embarked on the first of a series of affairs, it was Minerva who had expostulated. Stella had listened, said airily that making love with someone you liked was no big deal, and not let Minerva’s reasoned arguments affect her behaviour at all.

In spite of her light-heartedness and her fragility, Stella had never been one for confidences. Minerva’s hands clenched on her lap as she fought guilt and pain and a wasteland of emotions. Why should she think that she might have made a difference if Ruth hadn’t seen anything, if Nick had been unable to help the woman he had married, the woman who had loved him so desperately? Although it hurt to accept that there was probably nothing she could have done, she had to, or risk spending the rest of her life haunted by regret.

It was time to let the past bury its dead.

Wearily, she went into the bathroom, a room of Victorian splendour, claw-footed bath and all, only modernised in the most essential ways. As warm and dry as the rest of the house, it breathed the same indefinable air of luxury.

Staring into the well-lit mirror, she saw no ghosts, just her own somewhat plain reflection, its only claims to beauty a heart-shaped face and a pair of large, dark blue eyes set in thick black lashes.

Stella had been a golden girl, with skin that tanned easily into a warm brilliance, set off by soft blue eyes and curly amber hair.

When Minerva was growing up she had hated her pallor and the sudden contrast of eyes and lashes and full, red mouth. After the affair with Paul she’d become reconciled to her lack of beauty. Her first and only romance had taught her that, when it came to looks versus character in women, looks won out every time.

Her hands fell to her side. Mouth twisting into a cynical little smile, she recalled unflinchingly Paul’s voice as he had pointed out her deficiencies in that department. She only had herself to blame; stupidly, she had pleaded with him to tell her why he was leaving. So he had.

‘Don’t you ever look at yourself in the mirror? You’re too thin, and you don’t make enough of what you have got—you dress as though you’re ashamed of being a woman.’

Stung, she had countered, ‘Just because I don’t wear plunging necklines—’

‘Well, darling, you haven’t got anything to plunge to, have you? Nice enough in their little way, but it’s a very little way, isn’t it?’

She understood now that he had been angry because she had forced him to justify his betrayal, but then his acid irritation had humiliated her.

He had looked at her white face and said shamefacedly, ‘I’m sorry, Minerva, I don’t want to hurt you, we’ve had some good times together, but when I saw Cass again, I knew that—well, that’s all they were, good times.’

She had thought Paul loved her as much as she loved him. Lord, but she’d been green, too green to realise that Paul had been using her to make his girlfriend jealous. Even more than his casual dismissal of her physical attributes and the lovemaking they had shared, she’d been wounded by her own stupidity.

The humiliation had long gone; within three months his pretty, voluptuous Cass had dumped him for a tall footballer. Now Minerva knew he’d been immature and cruelly spoilt, but the whole episode had left her with a cynicism that her life cooking meals for the rich had intensified.

Oh, she believed in love; only death had severed her father’s love for her mother, and his second marriage was truly happy, too. But if and when she married it would not be under the spell of a chemistry so intense she mistook it for love.

‘Never,’ she said, shaking her head.

The forgotten locks of hair moved in a rippling mass. She pulled a face at the determined woman in the mirror and set to tidying herself. Her long-fingered hands moved swiftly, pinning the strands to the back of her head. Although the style was severely practical, just as practical as her hands and her skills, it made her look older and more severe.

That, she thought as she turned to make the bed, was how she was. Her hard-won peace of mind was not going to be in jeopardy because the man who had married Stella looked like a fallen angel.

When Nick came into the kitchen just before half-past four, Minerva was taking a tray of muffins from the oven. Acutely aware of his burnished glance, she flicked them on to a wire rack and covered them with a cloth.

His smile, swift and brilliant as a lightning flash, seared through her. ‘Are those for afternoon tea? They smell good.’

Something moved in the pit of her stomach, primeval, intense. ‘Yes,’ she said shortly.

The telephone interrupted. He answered it, asked a couple of questions, said, ‘I’ll ring you back in five minutes when I’ve got the information,’ and hung up, asking, ‘Is the tea made?’

‘No, I’ve only just put the kettle on.’

‘In that case, can you bring it to the office?’

‘Yes, of course.’

The office was a large room with a very intimidating computer set-up. Minerva, who had a novice’s fear of technology, put the tray down on one corner of the desk well away from it, and turned to go.

Nick was reading something at the desk, his lean hand making quick notes in the margin. Apart from calling ‘Come in,’ when she knocked, he hadn’t looked up. But as she moved away, he asked absently, ‘Why is there only one cup and saucer?’

‘Well, I—’

He lifted his head, his eyes narrowing. ‘Go and get another cup for yourself.’

Another direct order, and one that he didn’t expect to be disobeyed. He didn’t seem to realise that she might prefer some privacy. Minerva hesitated.

There was no warmth in his eyes, yet she thought they lingered a moment on her mouth. ‘Minerva,’ he said softly, ‘you’re here as a member of the family who is helping out, not as a hired hand. You said so, remember.’

She returned defensively, ‘After five years of being very much the hired help, being a member of the family is going to take a bit of getting used to.’

‘Get used to it,’ he commanded as she turned to leave the room. ‘You’re doing both Helen and me a favour.’

When she returned he was still scribbling notes in the margin, but as she came into the room he put his pen down and stood up, waiting for her to sit down.

‘Have you got yourself organised?’ he asked quite pleasantly.

‘Oh, yes.’ Far too aware of him, she poured the tea and set the pot down. In spite of his superficial pleasantness there was something curiously implacable about Nick Peveril.

‘Can you cope with the menu for the dinner?’

‘That’s no problem.’ She could cope with an infinitely more elaborate menu than the one Helen had made out, but she wasn’t going to tell him that. It sounded too much like boasting, and he wasn’t her employer; she didn’t have to impress him with her skill. She said, ‘I’ll need some help, though. I can cook it, but I’m not going to be able to serve a sit-down meal for twenty people by myself.’

‘That’s all organised. Jillian Howard’s going to be here all of Friday and Saturday; she’ll help in the kitchen with the dinner, and the two high-school sons of the head shepherd will serve at table.’

Minerva knew she looked taken aback. Composing her expression, she asked, ‘Do they know what they’re doing?’

‘Yes, they’ve done it before. I prefer to get people who are working on the station to help out.’

It sounded very worthy, although Minerva caught herself wondering whether they were too intimidated by the man to refuse.

‘You, of course, will eat with us,’ he said, so blandly that she wondered for one heart-stopping moment whether he was able to read her thoughts.

She frowned. ‘It will make things more difficult,’ she warned.

His brows lifted slightly. ‘Too difficult?’

‘Well, no,’ she admitted.

‘Good. I’d like you to act as my hostess.’

‘Oh, but—’ Minerva’s eyes met his. She could read nothing in their depths, but her protest died before Genevieve Chatswood’s name fell from her unruly tongue.

‘That’s settled, then. Is there anything else you want to know?’ he asked politely.

She shook her head. ‘Not at the moment, no.’

Leaning forward, he said, ‘I know I more or less dumped you in it, and I’m damned grateful. Helen wouldn’t have gone if you hadn’t agreed, and, to be honest, I didn’t like the sound of her daughter’s condition.’

Minerva said quietly, ‘I hope she’s all right. As for the other—well, it was good luck that I happened to be here. Perhaps it was meant.’

‘Or perhaps just coincidence,’ he countered, sounding very slightly bored. ‘Do you like what you’ve seen of the north so far?’

‘All I’ve seen so far,’ she told him acidly, ‘is rain. I left Auckland on a glorious day, but as soon as I reached the Brynderwyn Hills the rain set in, and it’s been raining on and off ever since.’

‘Well, you would come up in spring. Look at it this way—things can only get better. Last summer was such a dreary one we’re hoping for a good warm season this year. That’s if Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines doesn’t blow again.’

‘I thought farmers hated lovely dry summers,’ she said contrarily.

‘Who said anything about dry? A summer with no wind and at least an inch of rain each week will do us fine. Although there’s always the possibility of facial eczema then, of course.’

Minerva smiled. ‘I knew there had to be some catch,’ she teased. ‘Farmers are notorious for never being happy.’

‘Only because so much can go wrong when you’re at the mercy of the weather,’ he parried, a glint of amusement softening his features. ‘Cyclones, hailstorms, floods—’

‘Floods? Up here on the top of a thumping great hill?’

‘You’d be surprised how flooded the creek can get. We’re high enough to collect any raincloud that’s crossing Northland so we have to watch it carefully.’

The telephone rang. As he answered it Minerva started to get to her feet, but he shook his head. His hair gleamed golden in the light of the businesslike lamp above the desk. ‘Frank—what—? Where is he?’

The telephone quacked on. Nick frowned, staring into space, his eyes as clear and cold as shards of diamond. ‘No, I’m having afternoon tea. I’ll finish that, then go. I don’t care if he is wet!’ He hung up.

Minerva tried to look blank as though Frank and his wetness didn’t interest her in the least.

‘Frank is the other stockman,’ he said blandly, reaching for a muffin. Strong white teeth bit into it. Minerva knew she was an excellent cook, but she held her breath as he ate it, only relaxing when he said somewhat thickly, ‘This is delicious.’

‘Thank you.’ Curiosity overcame discretion. ‘Why is Frank wet?’

‘Today’s his day off and he’s been down at the pub since it opened. He decided not to drive his car home, so he started to walk. That was the manager’s wife. She’s just come back from shopping and picking up the kids at school. She offered Frank a ride, but he said he wasn’t fit to be in the car with children. Which is true—he’s drunk. So I’ll have to pick him up before the idiot gets run over.’

Minerva’s astonishment showed in her expression.

‘Good help is hard to get,’ he said shortly. ‘It’s the isolation.’

Clearly he had a paternalistic attitude towards his workers. No doubt the less ambitious liked it. It would have irked Minerva no end, but then, she had fought for her independence. Ruth had been horrified when she’d insisted on training as a chef. Her stepmother was a darling, but she was a little snobbish, and the thought of a member of her family working ‘as a servant’ had been hard to swallow.

Had Minerva taken Ruth’s tempting bait, sweetened with love and security, comfort and laughter, she would have stayed at home in a nice, safe job that didn’t take any of her energies, until she married. Like Stella.

‘The isolation?’ she asked now. ‘What isolation, for heaven’s sake?’

Nick leaned back in his chair and looked at her as though the slight snap in her voice intrigued him. ‘You don’t think you’ll mind the isolation?’

‘We’re only about twenty kilometres from Kerikeri. I don’t call that isolated.’

‘It’s a state of mind rather than a distance,’ he said.

Something in his voice caught Minerva’s attention. Hidden beneath the cool, distancing tone was a thread of intensity, a cryptic combination that sent small shocks along her nerve-ends. She looked up at an expressionless face, into eyes that seemed transparent as well-water, at a mouth relaxed into a crooked half-smile, yet she felt some unfathomable force beating through that enigmatic composure like the throb of a distant drum.

‘Yes, I suppose you’re right,’ she said quietly, more to fill the pulsing silence than to make a point. ‘My idea of isolation is somewhere the mail doesn’t go.’

Dark brows were raised. ‘We get it six times a week,’ he said, dead-pan.

‘How about your television reception?’

‘Perfect.’

‘And you’ve got power and water, as well as at least two bookshops in Kerikeri. A cinema, too. I don’t think you’re isolated at all. This is civilisation compared to some of the places I’ve been.’

His smile was ironic, almost mocking. ‘How adaptable you are. Where have you been?’

‘Oh, all around,’ she said vaguely, and picked up her cup and saucer again. People who boasted of their travels were complete bores.

He nodded, the dazzling eyes holding hers for a second until he reached for another muffin.

‘I’d better get back to the kitchen,’ she said, getting to her feet. He looked at her as though he knew she was retreating, and that slightly lop-sided mouth twisted.

‘Thank you again,’ he said as he rose. He waited until she was at the door before saying lightly, ‘Minerva?’

She looked over her shoulder. ‘Yes?’

‘Welcome to Spanish Castle.’

It almost sounded like a warning. She asked quickly, ‘Why Spanish? I can see the Castle, but it doesn’t look any more like a Spanish castle than an English one.’

‘Have you never heard of castles in Spain? Airy, insubstantial, glamorous illusions that fade with the hard light of day? You dream about your castle in Spain, but you never get it. A hundred and fifty years ago Nicholas Peveril came here with a woman he stole. He was happy for a little while, but he always knew her husband would find them. Which he did, after she’d spent two years in Nicholas’s bed and given him a son.’

‘He stole her?’

‘Remind me to tell you the whole story one day.’ That infuriating indifference had returned.

He nodded dismissively and turned back to the work he had been doing when she came in, his lean, strong hand moving decisively in the margin, the black writing standing out stark and very clear against the white paper.

‘Oh, by the way,’ he said without looking at her, ‘you’d better ring your parents to let them know where you are. If I know Ruth, she’ll have made you promise to ring every day, anyway.’

‘She tried,’ she said ironically. ‘You know Ruth. Five years of looking after myself count for nothing when I land in New Zealand, possibly the safest place in the world.’

‘Unfortunately, we’ve not been able to buck the trends. There are murderers and rapists here too,’ he said calmly.

‘I know. And sometimes there’s a person whose only mistake is being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But all the telephone calls home are not going to make any difference, so I keep telling Ruth. So far I haven’t been able to convince her! I will ring her tonight, even if it’s only to make her feel happier. Thanks.’

He left almost immediately on his mission of mercy, so Minerva was able to relax as she peeled the ends of a fat bunch of asparagus, freshly cut from a garden somewhere close by.

It was strange in the big house by herself, with only Penelope, relaxed on the chair, for company. Accustomed to locks and keys and guards, to the strict security of a world gone mad, Minerva wondered at the man who would leave a total stranger here among so many beautiful things, and apparently not worry in the least about it.

She could have been a complete opportunist; she needn’t really be Stella’s sister. Nick obviously hadn’t recognised her. She was surprised to find that this hurt, a tiny niggling ache, and recognised it for the danger signal it was.

Nick Peveril might be a cold fish, but he was a very attractive cold fish, with far more than his share of a profound male magnetism that seemed to have absolutely nothing to do with character or worth. Purely physical...

And perhaps he wasn’t so cold, after all. If anyone had asked her she wouldn’t have believed that he would drive through the rain to pick up his drunk stockman.

He arrived back within the hour, but stayed in the office. Minerva gave a final look around the kitchen, satisfied herself that her preparations for the meal were well under control, and went upstairs to shower and change.

Fortunately, in spite of the fact that she had planned to stay in motels and eat mostly takeaways, she had brought two all-purpose, almost uncrushable dresses that rolled up into no space at all. They were hardly glamorous, but they’d do. She eyed them both. One was the soft, clear ice-pink that suited her so well, the other the axiomatic little black dress. Deciding on the black, she hung it in the bathroom while she showered so the steam could smooth out its few creases. It was ready when, after putting on the lipstick and blusher that was all she used, she got into it.

Nick gave her a glass of sherry before dinner; they talked of her parents and her half-brother Kane, who was enjoying himself enormously at the same boarding-school Nick had attended, then found themselves discussing the implications of a book that had startled New Zealand. It was pleasant and low-key, and Minerva didn’t drink all of her sherry, yet she felt as though it had been champagne. Tiny bubbles of excitement fizzed softly through her bloodstream.

They ate in the morning-room off the kitchen, a room that moonlighted as a sitting-room too, for there were comfortable chairs at one end, and a set of cabinets and shelves that held books and pretty things as well as a television and an imposing stereo and CD player. The billionaire had been a stereo buff; Minerva noticed that the name on the speakers was the one on the huge affairs in the yacht.

Over dinner they spoke of generalities, nothing personal. Nick’s conversation revealed an incisive brain and a crisply unsentimental outlook which Minerva rather liked. She enjoyed the way he put her on her mettle.

Afterwards he helped carry the dishes into the kitchen, stacked the dishwasher while she made coffee, and told her that she was to feel free to watch television or play music if she wanted to. Unfortunately he wasn’t going to be able to stay with her; he had more work to get through.

Minerva found herself wondering if the detachment she found so off-putting was merely a front he assumed. Intuition, that subliminal reading of unnoticeable signs and intonations, made her suspect him of being a man of strong emotions and intense desires.

Of course she could be wrong. Perhaps he was simply ice through and through, and poor Stella had frozen to death.

She drank her coffee with him, and when he had gone back to the office rang her parents in their hotel in Seattle.

‘You’re where?’ Ruth asked.

‘Spanish Castle.’ She was glad Nick had left the room, because there was a note of betraying self-consciousness in her voice that galled her. ‘I dropped in to see Mr—Nick, just as his housekeeper was called away on a family emergency. She didn’t think she could go because Nick’s having a group of very high-powered Brazilian officials to dinner on Saturday, so Nick co-opted me.’

‘That’s sweet of you,’ Ruth said with satisfaction. ‘But talk about a busman’s holiday!’

‘I do like cooking, you know.’

‘Just as well, isn’t it. Darling, is Nick there with you?’

Absently, Minerva shook her head. ‘No, he’s working in his office.’

‘Oh, I won’t disturb him then.’

Ruth liked talking on the telephone, but eventually Minerva said, ‘Ruth, I have to go. This is costing me a packet!’

‘Surely Nick will—’

Minerva said firmly, ‘I’m paying for it.’

‘All right, then, I’ll see you when we get home, darling. Don’t hurry back to Auckland, though, if you’re having fun at Spanish Castle.’

Fun! Oh, Ruth, if you only knew, Minerva thought as she hung up.

On her way to bed, Minerva hesitated. Should she just go up, or beard the lion in his den and say goodnight? Bearding the lion seemed more polite. He might growl at her interruption, but Ruth would be proud of her manners.

He didn’t growl, or show any claws. Reading the contents of a file, he was standing across the room by a bank of cabinets. Even after he looked up it took a moment for him to register that she was there. ‘Yes?’ he said curtly.

‘I’m on my way to bed.’ A yawn brought her hand up over her mouth. ‘What time do you eat breakfast?’

‘Seven o’clock, but don’t worry about getting up, I can make my own. Goodnight. And thank you very much for stepping into the breach like this.’ His face was expressionless, his voice cool and distant.

‘Families are wonderful institutions,’ she returned flippantly. ‘Goodnight.’

The rain had stopped during dinner, and with a lightning change of mood the weather had gone from dank to fine. Up in her room, Minerva got into her pyjamas then sat on the bed, listening to the quietness flow in through the windows and through the big house. Nothing stirred; there was no sound of traffic, no breath of wind, nothing but peace and a cool, dark, moonless tranquillity.

Stella had loved parties and dances and dinners, people and motion and music; how had she felt about this all-pervading silence?

Yawning, Minerva got into bed and stretched out luxuriously across the queensized innersprung mattress.

She was almost asleep when she heard Nick come along the passage past her door. For a moment she thought he had stopped outside her room, but no, of course he’d gone into the room next door. It gave her the oddest sensation. The walls were too thick for her to hear more than the occasional noise of movement, but she could imagine him stripping off and getting into bed, and her wayward brain didn’t want to stop there.

Well, why not? she thought, trying to make light of it. Nick Peveril was definitely fantasy material, if you could put up with the icy remoteness.

Later, waking up from a confused dream, she realised she’d seen nothing of Stella in the grand old house, no photograph in the morning-room, nothing to say she had lived there. It seemed that, as far as Spanish Castle was concerned, her stepsister had simply never existed.

CHAPTER THREE

IN THE morning Minerva woke to a terrifying sense of dislocation. For a moment she lay staring at the ornately pleated silk of the tester above her, until she remembered where she was.

Reluctantly, she got out of the comfortable bed and pulled back the curtains, to gaze disbelievingly at a day as glowing and peerless as anything summer itself could produce.

Spiders’ webs looped crystal netting along the wire fence; she looked beyond gardens and trees and thickly wooded paddocks to darkly brooding bush. A blazing silver arc across the eastern horizon indicated the distant sea.

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